"Desu" is a verb. It basically acts as an equal sign (as in A=B), or to say "am/is/are." It would not appear in sentences which do not use 'is/are'... or have a different verb (ie: eat, drink, study, etc). (Which should make sense... I mean, that's like someone saying "I see some sentences in English that use the word "the" and some that don't".... right?)

I personally want to smack the heads of people who write, in romaji, "ha" for the subjective particle. They're NOT writing in kana (which *would* be 'ha') -- they're writing in romaji, and the spelling should damned well reflect what is SAID.

Short version = "desu" is Japan's "to be" verb, basically. Yes, only one out of the several English counterparts. "desu" covers "is, am, are, was, were, being, been". Ok, I know I'm missing at least one (only 13; not an English professor ), but simply, that's it.

In Japanese, the verb comes (usually) at the end of a sentence. So "Watashi wa Sachi desu." literally translates to "I Sachi (and in this case) am." Just like in translating one language to another (no matter what they are) you have to switch the words (and even change a few) around so it makes sense to the native speaker. Summary: Literal translations often make little sense, so changing the sentence, phrase, ect. around is essential (so Japanese to English might confuse you )

It really is better not to think of Desu as a verb but as a copula instead that just happens to conjugate as a verb. Don't think of it as 'to be' either or you'll confuse yourself. Think of desu as =. To be (existance) is arimasu and imasu. Unfortunatly, = and exist both translate to is, so keeping them separate in your mind will help reduce, but not eliminate mistakes.

Tony: Sorry if you wanna smack me for using 'ha' instead. :P I think it just looks more correct than using 'wa' but I know it's a personal thing. And really, I feel that Japanese learners should get used to seeing "ha" and knowing what it means. Or being able to read "tuci" and know how to pronounce it, even though it doesn't really follow English phonetics.

At the risk of unleashing the Wrath of Tony (tm), *I* hate using "wa" for "ha" in romaji. Why? Well, look at the shoutbox or hang out on chat and you will see the dreaded こんにちわ and its ilk ALL THE TIME.

Usually what I type when I type in romaji is what I would type to get the correct Japanese if I were entering it into a word processor. That is probably NOT any sort of "proper" romanization, but hey... I think it's less confusing than the official ways.

Just my 2 yen (MUCH less than 2 cents) worth...

Shira

"Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself." -- Vilfredo Pareto

Kawaii desu. (It is (?) cute!) [Note: You can only decipher it properly if you have context. If your friend is showing off her dog's newborn puppies, you can say that "Kawaii desu" means "They are cute." If your friend had just caught a single goldfish at a Japanese festival and she says that it's a he, "kawaii desu" can mean "He is cute." The Japanese depend on context when using a word like desu.]

Note: I replace the wa particle with ha because you do the same thing when writing Hiragana. Even though you pronounce it as wa. I will never understand the logix of that.

You have the right to remain an idiot. Anything you say can and will be IGNORED!

I think the difference between people who hate ha and those who don't care are those who don't type in Japanese all day long and those who do. When I type in Japanese, it's a pain in the arse to add the key strokes and change the way I think in order to write in a more readable fashion for western readers. Native Japanese typists are the same. It makes no logical sense for them to change their typing pattern of "ha hi hu he ho" to "fu" just because it's easier for westerns to read in romaji.

Now, if you are writing for the legibility of western readers, such as street signs, pronunciation books, etc, that is one thing, but for writing within Japan, and within the Japanese language kunreishiki is a better system, I believe.

If you want to smack the heads of people who write ha instead of wa, go right ahead. But there are a LOT of people in Japan, and Akebono is one of them.

The easiesty way is just to remove the use of romaji on this site altogether, but that's a different subject entirely.

Off to a meeting!

Last edited by Harisenbon on Mon 11.07.2005 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.